Abstract

The Heusler alloy was successfully produced as ribbon flakes of thickness around melt spinning. Fracture cross section micrographs in the ribbon show the formation of a microcrystalline columnarlike microstructure, with their longer axes perpendicular to the ribbon plane. Phase transitiontemperatures of the martensite-austenite transformation were found to be , , , and ; the thermal hysteresis of the transformation is . Ferromagnetic bcc austenite phase shows a Curie point of , with cell parameter at , transforming into a modulated orthorhombic martensite with , , and , at .